By Dr.

Krishna Prabhu

Radio Frequency Identification

The basic concept of an RFID system is to retrieve from a distance, without physical contact,
any digital information written on a memory card, by means of Radio Frequency waves. In
certain advanced systems, the information can also be remotely written on the memory chip
card.

The equipment used to read/write is called a “Reader” or an “Interrogator” and the information
carrying card is called a “Tag” or a “Transponder”. The reader and the tag use antennas at their
terminal points and the communication between them takes place through electromagnetic
waves transmitted and received between the two antennas. Dozens of cards can be read or
written in a fraction of a second. Also, depending on the frequency of operation and the design
of the reader and the tag antennas, a reader can communicate with a tag at distances from a
few centimeters up to 30 to 40 meters. The tag antenna is usually in the form of a coil and
integrated on the card itself. Depending upon the application, the reader antenna can also be in
the form of a coil of a few square centimeters to a couple of square meters. At short ranges the
communication take place just by inductive coupling between the two antennas. That is, like the
coupling between the primary and the secondary winding in a in a weekly coupled transformer.
The Tag communicates with the Reader using Load Modulation in the near field and
Backscatter Modulation in the far field. These techniques are described at the end of this article.

Master/slave relationship between the Application, the Reader and the Tag:

An RFID system can be used for detection, identification and tracking of people, animals,
objects, anything that moves or stationary.

The present day applications of RFID systems encompass a wide variety of areas. For example:
They are used in defense, hospitals, pharmaceutical industries, retail stores, warehouses,
highway toll gates, crime prevention, library management, homeland security, law enforcement,
cattle management, etc.,
Any particular application of an RFID system depends entirely on the data written on the tag by
the user and how that data is used when read remotely. Hence the application areas of the
system are very vast and limited only by the ingenuity and imagination of the end user and the
system design engineer.

The tags can be designed to be as small as a grain of rice that can be implanted in a human
being or an animal and can be as large as a credit card and of different forms. The size the
tags depends on the quantity of information to be written for any particular application.

Depending on the reading distance, a tag can be powered by a battery of its own or by the
same electromagnetic radiation produced by the reader to transmit data to the tags. If a tag
carries its own battery, it is called an Active Tag. The tag powered by the reader transmitter is
called a Passive Tag.

Similarly the reader can be a small hand-held device or bigger depending on the distance at
which the tags have to be read. Although the reader electronics itself can be small, the size of
the antenna attached to it increases in proportion to the distance. Also, the antenna size has an
inverse relationship with the frequency of operation.

The frequency of operation of RFID systems ranges from low to microwave frequencies.
(125 KHz to 5.8 GHz).

Data transmission techniques between the reader and the

tag:
Load Modulation: As mentioned previously, in the near field, the RF voltage link between the
reader and the tag antennas can be compared to a weekly coupled primary and secondary
coils of a transformer. If the tag coil is momentarily shunted, the primary winding which is the
reader coil experiences a momentary voltage change. Opening and shunting the secondary tag
coil corresponding to the corresponding to the digital data contained in the tag, can be seen as
amplitude modulation of the voltage at the primary, reader coil !! By monitoring the changes in
the voltage at the reader antenna (due to the tag’s modulation data), the data in the tag can be
reconstructed in the reader. This method of data transfer from the tag to the Reader is generally
used at low frequency operation, 125 KHz and 13.56 MHz.

Load Modulation with a subcarrier: Due to the weak coupling between the reader antenna
and the tag antenna, the voltage fluctuations produced at the reader antenna during the
transmission of data from the tag are very small. Eg: Reader transmits 100V of RF, data
fluctuations may be of the order of 10mv! Detecting this slight voltage change, superimposed
on a large reader voltage requires complex circuitry. instead, the tag uses a sub-carrier
frequency derived from the RF frequency received from the Reader and amplitude modulates
the sub-carrier with the digital data. For a 13.56 MHz system, typical sub-carrier frequencies
are 212 KHz or 847 KHz.

Back Scatter Modulation: If the tag is in the far field, the RF voltage link between the reader
and the tag antennas are by the varying EM waves transmitted by the Reader at the frequency
of operation. The EM waves reaching the resonant tag antenna (tuned to the same frequency of
operation), a small portion of waves will be reflected by the tag antenna in all directions. A small
part of the reflected energy finds its way back to the reader antenna. This will have an influence
on the voltage transmitted by the reader antenna. The tag uses this backscattered waves to
transmit its data to the reader by tuning and detuning (cloaking and uncloaking) its antenna coil
either by shorting and opening a part of the capacitor or a part of the inductance in its tuned
circuit. By monitoring the changes produced in the voltage at the reader antenna, the data in the
tag can be reconstructed.This method of data transfer from the tag to the reader is generally
used at UHF and Microwave frequencies, 816 KHz and 2.5 GHz.

RFID:1-bit transponder: It is used in Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) or Anti-Theft

Devices. An LC circuit resonant at the frequency of operation, in the form of a small thin tag is
incorporated in the articles. A large area ‘Frame Antennas’ of up to 2m x 3m are used by the
reader to detect the presence of the tags. The objective is to detect the presence or absence
of a tag.

Principal of operation:

A Reader/Interrogator antenna coil generates a varying magnetic field (H) at its frequency of
operation. If a resonant LC circuit of a tag antenna is moved into the vicinity a current will be
induced in the resonant circuit. circuit This induced current in turn produces its own varying
magnetic field (H’) which acts against the magnetic field (H) produced from the reader antenna.
The result of this will be a noticeable small drop in the voltage at the terminals of the reader
antenna coil. This will be an indication of the presence of a tag in the vicinity of the reader
antenna. The relative magnitude of these changes is generally very small and is dependent
upon the distance between the two antenna coils and quality factor Q of both resonant circuits.

A bit of a Trick !! To make the system more sensitive, a bit of a trick is used: The
frequency of the magnetic field (H) generated by the Reader is swept between a minimum and
maximum values, eg: 8.2 MHz +/- 10%. When the swept frequency cross the resonant
frequency of tag, a clear & sudden dip in the voltages of the reader and the tag coils is produced
that is more noticeable.
A very good reference for up to date RFID application that are
implemented worldwide in every imaginable field:
rfidjournal@rfidjournal.com.